


Pieces

by Leareth



Series: In My Line Of Work [8]
Category: Tokyo Babylon, X/1999
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 19:45:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leareth/pseuds/Leareth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>/Strange,/ he thought distantly. /His eye seems to burn./</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces

**_dust_ **

Empty home.

Empty flask.

Empty heart.

Subaru stood in front of the bedroom mirror. He stared with the dull expression of one drugged. His reflection was blurred; there was a lot of dust on the mirror. Most people with their sight restored would smile. Subaru didn't.

_Strange,_ he thought distantly. _His eye seems to burn._

Almost lethargically, Subaru reached out and touched the mirror, pressing his palm against the cool glass and feeling grit beneath his skin. He dragged his hand across it, leaving a curved smear. The glass hadn't been cleaned in over a month. The person who lived in this apartment hadn't come back to do so. He never would.

 

_... empty home ..._

 

On the surface, the apartment seemed normal. Frozen in time, a snapshot of a life. There was food in the fridge, a remote control on the sofa's armrest, towels in the bathroom, and clothes in the wardrobe. It was as if the person living here had gone out for the day and the apartment was waiting for his return. Then one would notice the thin layer of dust over everything, and the feeling of staleness permeating through the furniture. That lifelessness had been the first thing that struck Subaru the moment he opened the door, using the key that had appeared next to his pillow the morning of the day the bridge had fallen.

It seemed as if that person had always known how that day would end.

 

_... empty flask ..._

 

Subaru closed his left eye and gazed into the mirror with the other. Other, that was the name for it. Other. Unrelated. Separate. Not his. A gift from a dead man. A pittance of a compensation for his love. Someone up there had an interesting sense of humour.

Slowly, he opened his left eye again and stared with both. The gold of the other eye seemed to be the only colour in his face. His own orb had long lost its brilliance for there was no reason for it to shine, not when he had nothing left to live for. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to reach for. Just two completely different roles with completely different duties that he had never asked for or wanted, and certainly didn't care about.

He had nothing left for himself. And Subaru didn't care.

 

_... empty heart ..._

 

There were shadows in the mirror. Subaru turned away and sat on the bed, wanting to hold his head in his hands. Instead, he let himself fall backwards and lay on his back, staring listlessly at the darkened ceiling. The sheets beneath him were clean – too clean. They held no warmth, no scent. Nothing but dust. What was that saying? Ashes to ashes, dust to ...

Cold. Subaru shifted to lay his head on the pillow. He shut his eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to find a trace of something in the place where that other person had slept. Perhaps there would be cigarettes, or flowers, or ...

There was nothing.

Subaru curled around the pillow into a tight ball, burying his face in its scentless softness.

He wanted to cry.

He couldn't.

 

**_leaves_ **

He had to clean the apartment. The first thing he did when he got up in the morning was set about doing so. Cloths and soap were easy to find, stacked neatly in a white bucket in a cupboard beside the bathroom, as were a broom and dustpan. That other person's life had been meticulously organised.

Subaru was careful to remember where he had got everything from, so he could put them back in their original positions when he finished.

Despite the growing winter outside he opened all the windows, taking some relief in the wind's chill that seemed to inject some life into the place. It helped get rid of the dust, too. Painstakingly Subaru wiped everything down, the stereo and TV, the kitchen bench, the shelves and inside of windows, until it all gleamed and the water in the bucket was grey. What pot plants that could possibly be saved he watered, otherwise they were thrown away into the large rubbish bag he had hung on a chair. The dead ones far outnumbered the living.

More than once he managed to knock the dry, brittle leaves loose onto the floor. The ferns were the worst; their delicate fronds, once soft and verdant green, crumbled as soon as he touched them. In the end there were so many leaves that he gave up on trying to catch them all, and went to get the vacuum cleaner instead.

For such a small vacuum cleaner, it certainly made a lot of noise. Or perhaps it only seemed loud because the apartment was so silent. Subaru didn't blink when the high-pitched whine came on, but held the vacuum's mouth over the floor and watched the leaves disappear up the metal throat. He watched them disappear one by one. The vacuum screamed in his ears like something dying. There were voices in the scream.

Subaru turned the vacuum cleaner off. Silence.

He turned it on again. Someone started speaking.

Subaru held the handle steady, trying to listen. Underneath the vacuum's steady whine, the murmuring rose and fell. Too low, too indistinct to understand, yet too insistent to be denied. He strained his ears to listen, sometimes almost catching a fleeting word just beyond clarity that finally, slipped away. The more he tried, the less he heard. He thought he recognised a name.

Hands trembling, Subaru switched off the vacuum cleaner. Silence fell on the apartment like a shroud. For a moment Subaru was tempted to turn the vacuum on again, just to listen.

There were still leaves on the floor. Subaru put the vacuum away and got out the broom. The cupboard where the vacuum was stored was locked.

 

**_smoke_ **

The clothes in the cupboard were too big for him. Not that they were his style anyway. Neatly pressed shirts hung in precise order, another door opened to reveal rows of expensive suits and ties. On the less formal level were slacks, shirts and sweaters, casual but no less refined. Dark colours reigned over all, navy blue, a splash of burgundy, perhaps something of deepest green, but most of all, black. Black as night, black as shadow, they lurked next to touches of white and pale grey as if to swallow the light.

Subaru stared at all of these for a long time, seeing their elegance but feeling nothing. The time when he cared about his appearance was long in the past.

Slowly, one by one, Subaru took each piece of clothing and laid it on the bed. He ran his hands over each item as he did so, half-closing his eyes feeling wool and silk and the like in a sensuous almost-trance. Some of them he lifted to caress his cheek. There was no warmth in their folds.

Finally, the cupboard was empty. Without any regard for care or order Subaru swept all the clothes into the boxes he had prepared for this task, and carried each box to the store cupboard in the laundry. He put them on the highest shelves with the help of a small ladder, where he wouldn't be able to reach them. Afterwards he went back to the bedroom. There was a trench-coat behind the door.

Gently, Subaru took it off its hook. He draped it over his arm, stroking the smooth, strong material. It was black, of course, he expected no less. A cigarette lighter fell out of the breast pocket. Subaru picked it up. Grasping it tightly in his fingers as if it would disappear, he reached his hand into the other pockets. He found a stray cigarette.

Silently, Subaru went to the living room. He draped the too-big coat over his shoulders and sat down. He put the cigarette to his lips, and, flicking the lighter's flame on, lit it, breathing in the smoke. His eyes watered – this brand was stronger than what he was used to – he closed his eyes to shut the tears away. Grey smoke wreathed about his face, filling the room with its familiar scent.

Subaru bowed his head and pulled the coat closer around him like a blanket, letting the smoke blur the edges of his mind.

 

**_mirror_ **

Subaru always tried to avoid the mirrors. There were several of them in the apartment; one in the bathroom, two in the bedroom, and one large one adorning the wall of the living room, which made shunning them difficult. Although he had gone through every room and cleaned every surface, the mirrors were the only things that remained untouched. Their grimy, misted surfaces helped Subaru somewhat. He disliked seeing his face, and disliked even more the eyes that would stare back. After a short while, it became habit to avert his gaze whenever passing them, and to hurry on until he deemed himself safe.

One afternoon, he passed the mirror in the living room. Something in it caught his eye, and instinctively, he looked. Once he did, he found he could not pull away, though every sense pleaded for him to do so.

In the clouded mirror there seemed to be a shadow, tall, dark, walking about the apartment behind Subaru. It moved with the casual ease of a man in his own home. Coldness creeping over him, Subaru stared, watching that shape in the mirror, not daring to turn around. He leaned in closer, trying to determine a face, a figure, to resolve the image blurred by dust –

It _saw_ him.

Subaru froze. Swiftly, the shadow seemed to stride up behind him, it came closer, reached out for him – he whirled around, about to cry out and hands raised as if to repel a blow –

There was no one there.

For a long time Subaru stared at the empty apartment. Then, not daring to look into the mirror again, he fled for the bedroom, and, breath sobbing in his throat, threw himself to sleep.

 

**_whispers_ **

There were times in the darkest hours of the night that Subaru would think that he could hear something, whispers in the wind or murmurs concealed in the hum of traffic. They came usually when he was too far gone in sleep to discern dream from reality, and he would let them go. Yet sometimes, just sometimes, the whispers seemed too real to be his fantasy and he would wake up trembling, searching the shadows half in longing and half in fear.

Always, there was nothing there but his own despair.

 

**_shadows_ **

Sunset. Subaru took a break from cooking his dinner to watch the horizon turn saffron and the sun die in all its glory. The main windows of the apartment faced almost due west over the city. The view must have been expensive. Subaru hadn't paid for it with money.

It took hours, it seemed, for the light to disappear. Watching it do so, watching the sky fade to black, it helped him forget, just for a little while. Just for a little while, Subaru forgot how his heart was bleeding still, how he didn't know whether to hope or fear living in this abandoned home, how the shadows on the floor and on the walls were lengthening longer and longer – until they stretched out to touch him.

The first touch was almost imperceptible; he thought it was merely a breath of wind. But all the doors and windows were closed. Absorbed in how the neon city lights flickered on in twos and threes, he dismissed it as a figment of imagination until it came again, a breath on the nape of his neck as if someone was standing at his back, watching the lights with him.

Subaru spun around and saw no one. He peered fearfully into the darkened spaces of the apartment behind him, a wild animal tensed for flight. Not that he had anywhere to flee to.

It came all at once. First, a flicker of shadow at the corner of his eye. When Subaru whirled to look it would reappear from some other side, taunting him. Trembling, Subaru backed away trying to avoid the shadows, the mirrors, to avoid making any sound at all even though he wanted to scream. He backed into the stove where his dinner was burning in a pan and stumbled. His hand, flailing to find support, went straight for the overheated pan. Before his hand made contact, however, Subaru felt something strike him across the face. Dazed, Subaru was sent sprawling. His head struck the wall with a sickening crack, and he slid ungracefully to the floor.

The darkness that claimed him then was almost welcome.

 

**_dream_ **

His first thought, when he could think again, was that he had regained consciousness. When he opened his eyes, however, he then realised – dreamily – that the apartment was misty white.

There was someone in the apartment.

Slowly, Subaru sat up. He was on the couch. There was a cup of tea on the table in front of him. Steam wafted up from its surface, adding to the haze that pervaded throughout the room.

With all the finality of a man facing his own death, Subaru closed his eyes.

"You've taken everything," he whispered. "My sister, my pride, my love, will you take my sanity as well?"

Footsteps, approaching him from the direction of the kitchen. "Only if you let me."

He refused to look up. "Are you really here? Or am I just dreaming?"

"You tell me."

Subaru bit his lip, trying not to cry. The voice grew strangely, uncharacteristically gentle.

"Drink your tea, Subaru-kun."

Involuntarily, Subaru opened his eyes. He choked.

Seishirou gazed down at him with white, sightless eyes. Hands trembling, Subaru reached for the tea. He knocked the cup over; it fell with a strangely muted sound, spilling its hot contents all over the table. Seishirou shook his head and walked towards the cupboard. Without hesitation or fumbling he opened the cupboard door, took out the wash bucket and cleaning cloths, and just as easily returned.

"I'm glad you put didn't move anything," said Seishirou calmly, kneeling down to wipe the spilled tea. He had to run his hand along the table's surface to find the spill. Subaru, frozen into place, watched as the man cleaned it up by touch alone. "Otherwise this would be even more difficult."

Subaru let out a soft moan. Hearing this, Seishirou turned those sightless eyes back on him. "Is something wrong, Subaru-kun?" Before the young man could move, Seishirou reached up to touch his face. "Are you crying? I can't see." A slight laugh. "Obviously."

Subaru pushed the hand away and stood up. He stared down at the man kneeling at his feet with wild, mismatched eyes.

"Get out. Get out of here."

Silently, Seishirou shook his head.

"You're _dead_ , get out! Just get out--" A sob racked his body, he tried to step away, stumbled, and fell against the couch. He turned his face into the leather and squeezed his eyes shut, shaking. "Just – get out – please ..."

He half-expected, half-feared that Seishirou – ghost or imagined – would reach out to touch him. There was nothing. Just the dry sobs that throbbed throughout his chest without any comfort at all.

"I can't go, Subaru-kun," said Seishirou softly, close and far away.

"You want me here."

 

**_maze_ **

The apartment was so neat, so perfectly arranged, as if the place had been lifted out of a home design magazine. The glass-and-iron dining table with its array of chairs, the black leather couches, the stainless steel kitchen stools, the ebony shelves and cabinets, everything was organized to be as spacious as possible without seeming spartan.

Subaru liked the layout, but someone else had (did?) too.

He wasn't strong enough to lift anything except the chairs off the ground, so he had to drag. The supports beneath the couches screeched painfully as he pulled them across the floor to abandon them at random in the most inconvenient of places. Bar stools and chairs he set haphazardly in front of doorways and entrances. He removed disused television from its niche and placed it in the middle of the floor, its wires trailing back to the wall. The crimson scatter cushions, shockingly bright against the monochromatic colour scheme of the apartment, were thrown to the slippery tiles. Subaru had to be careful not to step on them as he weaved his way through the maze he had created.

Finally, after pulling the ebony coffee table towards the wall, Subaru had to stop. His muscles were aching, sweat dripped down his skin – he wiped it away absently, unfeelingly. The adrenalin that had pulsing ever since he regained consciousness and had driven him to this was weakening, leaving him drained, exhausted …

Picking through the confusion that had once been a testimony to interior harmony, Subaru went to the bedroom, hoping desperately that he would not be disturbed.

And yet … and yet …

And yet.

 

**_blood_ **

He wasn't sure what woke him. Then again, he wasn't sure if he was even awake. Everything seemed washed out somehow, white in full misty daylight.

Subaru usually dreamed in black.

Softly, he rose from the bed, his bare feet soundless on the polished wood. The door was just as soundless as it swung open at his touch. Avoiding the chair immediately in his path, Subaru stepped outside.

Was it his imagination, or had everything grown bigger, more menacing? Subaru was picking his way through a twisted wonderland of what had once been a normal apartment. A chair he passed, its four legs crouched, seemed poised to pounce. The TV's blank screen watched him unblinkingly. The chairs, the glass-and-iron table – all disfigured, with no sense of symmetry. A home created by a mind that was no longer quite sane.

In the middle of it all stood a man.

Subaru quietly stopped behind one of the warped couches, thinking first to hide behind it. Then he belatedly realised he that didn't have to hide from view at all anymore. Seishirou stood with one hand resting on the black marble kitchen bench, sightless eyes staring out the blazing white window. There was no expression on his face. His hand was bleeding. The edge of the glass table carried a similar colour.

"Subaru-kun," said Seishirou softly. "What have you done?"

Subaru made no sound. Even so, Seishirou turned towards him, those white eyes never blinking. He stretched a hand out as he stepped away from the bench. Instinctively, Subaru took a step back, moving around the couch as Seishirou slowly fumbled his way closer. A game of chase with a blind man. It was almost laughable.

Seishirou stopped between a chair and the coffee table, no closer to catching him than before.

"I know you're here, Subaru-kun," Seishirou said quietly. "I know you're watching me. Does it please you to see me like this?"

Subaru made no answer. The blind man took one more step forward and knocked into the chair. Both fell heavily without a sound, Seishirou's arm striking the table's corner as he did so. Involuntarily Subaru made as if to move towards him, then realised that it was already too late. He merely watched mutely as Seishirou sat up and felt along his hurt arm. His hand came away bloody.

"Tell me, Subaru-kun. Is this still red?"

It was a while before Subaru brought himself to speak.

"Yes."

There was a small, almost bitter smile. It made him ache.

When he woke up, Subaru quietly set about putting the apartment's furniture back to where they originally belonged. There was blood on the glass table. Subaru didn't wipe it off.

 

**_touch_ **

"Wow, nice place."

Subaru made no answer. He quietly went to the kitchen and got out two glasses, filling them with water. His unknown, nameless visitor had to entertain himself. He was a young man, slim with black hair and brown eyes with a pretty face, probably early twenties, either that or he had been lying about his age. Subaru didn't really care. They had met just a few hours ago, one of the very rare times Subaru went out, driven into the public by restlessness and the need for change like cattle fleeing the whip. Why Subaru had let him come home with him he didn't know. Maybe it was for the same reasons.

"I like, I really like." The young man was running his fingers over the dead television – Subaru felt a flash of irrational anger. Before he could act on it the young man straightened and continued his exploration like a real estate agent. "Great view," he commented, gesturing to the window, now filled with the colourful lights of the city. "You must have a cushy job to able to afford a place like this. Do you?"

It took a little while for Subaru to realise that he had been asked a question. "What?"

"Hey, you do talk." Another smile, open and meaningless. "I asked what your job is."

"Oh." The glasses were filled, waiting to be drunk. "I don't work."

"Really? Then how did you get to live in such a fancy apartment?"

He pushed one of the glasses forward. Stupid thing to do, really, it merely invited conversation. "Someone left it to me."

A crash. The young man turned around startled, then laughed. The glass had fallen off the edge of the bench. "That was rather clumsy. Oh well, at least it's only water." Subaru stared at the puddle, the glass shards lying in it. The young man's smile turned sharp. "Don't worry about it, I wasn't thirsty anyway."

Subaru didn't hear this. Nor did he respond when his unwanted guest approached him, and, pressing up against him like a cat, kissed him. He closed his eyes and let it happen, just like he let the buttons of his shirt be undone. Suddenly the room seemed very cold.

"It was your eyes, you know that," the young man murmured, laying his palm flat against Subaru's bare chest and sliding it down. "Real strange and pretty. Has anyone told you that you're beautiful?"

"… no …"

He let out a cry of pain. Startled, the young man drew back. Subaru bent over, hands clenched into fists. They were burning.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Subaru didn't – couldn't answer. The few lights in the room suddenly switched off. He heard someone swear, then scream. The screaming went on and on. When he somehow pushed past the pain of his hands burning to look up, he saw that the young man had his hands over his face, and they were covered in blood. The screaming turned into a stream of pitiful expletives as the young man fell to the floor and gouged his arms open on the glass shards still lying there.

Subaru merely stood silently and watched.

"Fuck, oh dear fucking god …" The young man pulled his hands away. Blood dripped down his face and neck from a deep gash that curved from above his right eyebrow, down just past the edge of his eye, slicing his cheek and lips open, all the way down to his jaw. "That glass there, that big piece –" One hand back over most of his face, the young man stabbed a finger at a shard of glass glinting in the city lights, "– it just flew up and _sliced_ me!"

Subaru looked at the glass. "Oh."

"Oh? _Oh?!_ Is that all you're going to fucking say? I need a damned doctor!"

"Go out and call one then."

The young man stared at him wildly, brown eyes tinged red by the blood. Subaru gazed back. The burning on his hands was gone now. The young man's bloody face twisted.

"Well, _fuck_ you!"

Without waiting to see what effect his pitiful insult had, the young man ran for the door, grabbed his shoes, and without even bothering to put them on, pulled the door open and fled. The handle nearly slipped out of his bloody fingers, but he managed to effect a slam anyway.

Calmly, ignoring the bloodstains on the tiled floor, Subaru went over to the wall-length mirror. He stared at his blurred reflection in it for a moment. Then he leaned forward, rested his forehead against the cool glass, and hit it with the base of his fist, over and over again, as he slipped to his knees sobbing without spilling any tears. The mirror cracked.

"Why," he hissed. "Why, why, why, why, _why?!_ "

The mirror cracked a little more under his blows, a white web of faults spun by an insane spider centred under his fist. Before the mirror could truly shatter Subaru collapsed completely against it, eyes squeezed shut and body racked with dry sobs. So caught up in his own pain was he, Subaru didn't feel the arms around him until they tightened. Subaru stiffened, opened his eyes--

"No. Don't look."

\--he hastily shut them again. In that split second, however, he had seen the mirror, his reflection crumpled against it, and the figure of Seishirou behind him. Somehow he knew that if he turned to look, he wouldn't see anything, so he didn't look. He kept his eyes shut as he turned away from the mirror and buried his face into Seishirou's shirt. It had no scent, and that made him shake all the more.

"It didn't hurt, you know." A hand, stroking his hair, calming him. "It was surprising, yes, but it didn't hurt. I accepted it."

Subaru gripped a sleeve in the dark. "How can you say that?"

A touch on his neck, breath in his hair. "The best thing about being killed by someone is that you're never alone at your time of death. And when the person who kills you is someone special …" The hand on his neck slid forward, cupping his cheek, "… it is simply beautiful."

Subaru choked. He turned his lips into the hand on his cheek and kissed it, blindly reaching up with his own hand to press it closer as if he would devour it. He felt Seishirou pull his hand away slightly, shifting to press fingers against Subaru's lips …

"Don't open your eyes."

… and with his touch as a guide, manage to join his lips to his.

 

**_words_ **

"It's quiet."

"Yes."

"What's the time?"

"I don't know. I can't see."

"... I--"

"Don't open your eyes. And don't be sorry."

"... that's nice"

"What is?"

"That. Touching."

"Ah."

"Touch me again?"

"Like this?"

"Mm."

Silence.

"I like the way you feel."

"What do you mean?"

"You. Soft. Strong. Warm."

"Oh."

Silence.

"I liked your hair when it was longer. Like silk."

Silence.

"Kiss me?"

"You're so cute, you know."

"Please?"

Silence.

"... I like that."

"Good."

"Love me?"

"... do you know what you're asking?"

Silence.

"Hey."

"Yes?"

"Are you really here? Or am I going mad?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"... No."

"Then go to sleep."

"Will you be here when I wake up?"

"I can't promise that."

Silence.

"Hold me?"

"All right."

 

\+ owari +


End file.
